Comments made by White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt after a supporter of Donald Trump attacked a Mormon temple on Sunday alarmed an expert on Christian nationalism who spoke with The New Republic’s Greg Sargent.

In an interview published Tuesday morning, Sargent singled out Leavitt for doubling down on Donald Trump’s knee-jerk response that it was an attack on Christianity, that led her to tell reporters a day earlier, “And as the president rightfully put, in his Truth Social yesterday, this appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians and the Trump administration is fully committed to not only investigating these crimes, but prosecuting them to the fullest extent of the law.”

According to author Sara Posner, “There’s a lot of problems with the top official in the United States—the president—and his surrogate, Karoline Leavitt, saying these things publicly before we know more about what happened.”

Noting the president’s war on free speech in academia and in the media, Posner suggested a new war may be in the offing for any criticism of Christians or Christianity.

“After saying this appears to be yet another targeted attack on Christians, she then said the Trump administration is fully committed to not only investigating these crimes, but prosecuting them. I think that’s highly suggestive language,” Sargent prompted his guest.

“Well given their track history, so given how during his campaign he promised a task force to combat anti-Christian bias, and I think they established such a task force, although I’m not sure what it has been doing—it’s very menacing and troubling,” Posner admitted. “Because we know from past things that they’ve done in their supposed combating of anti-Semitism, for example, that they are keen on violating people’s First Amendment rights in their supposed quest to end anti-Semitism, right?”

She elaborated that it goes deeper than that.

“And so if they’re going to use law enforcement to combat what they see as anti-Christian bias—and they see that as preventing crimes motivated by anti-Christian bias—I mean, you can’t… you know, somebody saying something that you think is anti-Christian. And remember, they think it’s anti-Christian to, say, disagree with a pastor who’s against same-sex marriage. They think that that’s anti-Christian to say that,” she explained.

Admitting she doesn't know exactly what they have in store, she suggested, “Given their track record, and given how they’re over-policing and militarizing the policing of cities, given how they have no compunction about violating people’s First Amendment rights—taking these things together—it’s very troubling that they are talking about this.”

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